In the United States, children are required, by law, to attend some form of schooling,
whether it is a private or a public school. While this process is occurring, the children come into
contact with a fundamental Discourse of our society. That Discourse is broadly labeled as
“Teachers.” Teachers are not only limited to the ones that are employed by the education system,
because anyone can be a teacher, but for the sake of simplicity, I will only be speaking of the
teachers that are in the United States’ educational system. They represent the government’s
investment in its own future.
If teachers were to be spotted out in the streets or in social settings while on lunch break,
most people would not be able to spot teachers because of how they dress. While there are dress
codes that vary between schools, teachers do not have a very distinct uniform like police officers,
marching bands, or sports teams. In a college setting, if a teacher were to sit with the students, no
one would be able to tell them apart from another student aside from being more formally
dressed.
So what exactly does the people in this Discourse do? Yes, essentially, they teach. But
what defines them from the guy on the corner selling flowers, or you and I, other than a title?
Those that are within this Discourse can have different goals and different activities. For
example, an elementary school teacher’s goal could be to instill basic social functions within a
child while a professor with a doctorate degree’s goal maybe to do research and teach societies.
The goal that is shared is giving knowledge.
The most basic an intrinsic reason for wanting to join this Discourse community would
be to educate. Whether it is educating the United States’ future through the primary stages of
schooling, educating those that want to know more than they are actually required to, for
example college students or voluntary seminars, or educating the general public through research
and publication. Each member of the community joined for a different reason and some may
have ended up in the Discourse without originally aiming to be in it in the first place.
Some people know what they want to do from the time that they begin college and may
take the appropriate classes and pursue the specific major that they would like to teach. Others
may have pursued a career of being a scientist and ended up teaching because they did not enjoy
their career. There are many paths that lead to the same destination, but there are both advantages
and disadvantages to each one.
Take the teacher that came straight out of college for example; they have classes that
learn them on how to deal with different types of students and later on, they have the chance to
be encultured in the actual teaching environments through university student teaching programs.
It is during this time that these student teachers take the theories that they have learned and try to
apply it in a real setting in order to gain experience. Teachers that go to college specifically to
teach have a great opportunity for both learning and acquisition. The disadvantage to this path is
the matter of raw knowledge, which happens to be an advantage of another path.
Teachers that began in a different field or profession will know more raw knowledge and
real world application of the subject matter that they teach. There will be some students that are
curious about matters outside the curriculum or students that are actually interested in continuing
in the field that you are teaching about. With the background in the field that these teachers had
before actually becoming teachers, they can spark interest in the student that is “just here for the
credit” or they can share valuable information about the profession with the student that is
interested. According to Valarie Reynolds, PHD., Earth Sciences professor at UNC Charlotte,
the downside of this path is that when you come into the class room as a teacher, it’s a “sink or
swim” type of deal because you did not have the training and preparation that the college courses
would have provided for you as a reference.
During an interview with Reynolds, she told me that she did not originally intend to
become a teacher. “After finishing college, I felt like I was not done learning, so I went back and
got my master’s degree and my doctorate degree. To teach at a college level, a masters or a PHD
is required, but that’s not why I got those degrees. I started in research and went into teaching
afterwards.” Dr. Reynolds took a bit of an unorthodox path and is teaching with her own reasons
for choosing to teach at UNC Charlotte. Since she did not acquire any experience while going
through college, she reaches out to other professors for peer reviews and critiques. Reynolds also
makes an effort to improve her teaching methods through observation; she occasionally goes to
other professors’ classes and watches them teach.
Becoming a teacher for the wrong reasons will not only put you in a position where you
aren’t happy with your job, but it will also jeopardize the future of the students that you teach.
By choosing to become a teacher because you want to sit around and not really do or teach
anything because you do not want to will deprive students of knowledge that they will need later
on when they get to a class where the teacher will expect them to know what they should have
learned in your class. From that point on, it will be a big catch up game for the student. There is a
saying that goes along the lines of “those who can’t, teach.” This is a saying from those who do
not understand the concept of being a teacher. In most cases, the teacher has already done what
they are teaching, and maybe they still are. The concept, once again, is to give knowledge.
A good way to learn what the essentials are when you are just starting up as a teacher is
to reach out to a colleague. Grading scales can vary between schools, counties, and states. A
Grading scale is the point system in which students are measured academically. In the Discourse
of “Teachers,” scale can mean a completely different thing for them rather than somebody in the
Discourse of “Body Builders.” A standard of deviation is another method that some teachers may
employ while considering the grading scale as well. For example, in my high school, The
Academy at Smith, the grading scale is on a 7-point scale while the grading scale of UNC
Charlotte is on a 10-point scale. Some teachers can use discretion while grading and add in a
factor of standard deviation in order to get a more accurate representation of the class.
Teachers use a plethora of means of communication and it also varies between who the
recipient and intended audience is. For example a teacher-to-teacher newsletter will be written
differently than if it was a teacher-to-student or teacher-to-parent. Dr. Reynolds uses the NAGT
(National Association of Geoscience Teachers) to develop different teaching methods for
different subjects and types of people. Teachers also publish journals for each other, as well as
the general public, to read and for certain audiences, the journal or article can be put into an
everyday vernacular so that people won’t just toss aside something that they don’t understand.
We can read their compositions for class, or to better ourselves when given suggestions. We may
make a change in lifestyles when a science article discovers a habit that we do has serious and
deadly repercussions.
As I mentioned earlier, although anyone can be a teacher, not everyone has the qualities
of a good teacher. A good teacher can get a student that is just there because they have to be, and
entice them into enjoying the class. Reynolds says “The teacher makes the class” and I strongly
agree. Teachers are a fundamental part of our society. We need them. Although there are other
similar communities, there is no other community that gets as much contact with the youths of
our nation, mainly because it is required by law, as teachers do.